Coburn set an example for the U.S. Senate

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An old joke in Washington is that every member of the United States Senate sees a future president in the mirror. The unspoken corollary is that – for those senators who pursue the dream – the mirror usually breaks. In the past 100 years, only three men – Warren Harding, John F. Kennedy and Barack Obama – have proceeded straight from Congress' upper chamber to the Oval Office.

The excess of ambition populating the Senate makes it all the more valuable when one of its members is content to grow where he's planted: to take seriously the charge of his office without an eye toward a bigger stage. In recent years, no one has fit that description better than Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, who announced last week that he will leave Congress at the end of the current session as he combats cancer.

Those who have spent much time in Washington know that it's not exactly a bastion of temperate personalities. The capital city is a hothouse of vanities, and the temperature is always a bit higher in the Senate than anywhere else in town. Members of the upper chamber tend to practice arrogance at the varsity level.

The contrast presented by Coburn is part of what has made him such an appealing figure. In a city where honorifics are worn as insignia, the small-town physician prefers to be addressed as “doctor” rather than “senator.” He has little patience for the inflated pretense of his office. An acquaintance recently told me that, after attending a Coburn speech, she had attempted to get on an elevator only to be told by staffers that she'd have to wait for another car; the one she was attempting to enter was being held for the senator. As the words were spoken, Coburn approached, disgusted with the artificial formality and told her “get in.”

Had the senator's health remained intact, he would have departed Washington at the end of 2016 anyway – because he had voluntarily pledged to term-limit himself. In recent years, many limited-government advocates have argued that such limits should be given the force of law. As Coburn demonstrated, however, that stance misses the point. Placing external restraints on ambitious politicians is a far inferior approach to actually choosing elected officials with the humility to demand that restraint from themselves.

The manner in which Coburn conducted himself in office, of course, is secondary to the substance of his work; on that score, Coburn was, if anything, even better.

First elected to the Senate in 2004, Coburn embodied the Tea Party ethos at a time when Republicans were kicking around the phrase “big-government conservatism” without a hint of irony. He opposed earmarks while his colleagues boasted of the pork they were bringing back home. He also relentlessly demanded accountability from every organ of government – not just those favored by the political Left. While most Republicans, for instance, cordoned off the Pentagon from their critiques of government waste, Coburn produced an invaluable 2012 report entitled “The Department of Everything,” which identified nearly $68 billion in wasteful Defense Department expenditures on everything from microbreweries to a Pentagon-funded reality show.

For all of his limited-government bona fides, however, Coburn has never possessed the pugilistic impulse embodied by the new generation of conservatives, like Sen. Ted Cruz. The Oklahoma senator went out of his way to cultivate friendships with Senate Democrats (including an enduring – and improbable – relationship with Barack Obama). He was frequently chosen as a member of bipartisan commissions. And he consistently worked to unravel government's influence through meaningful, practical legislation rather than grandiose publicity stunts. He governed via legislation, not via press conferences.

Tom Coburn has been a citizen-legislator at a time when the concept is all but dead. He's earned the right to return to his home and his family, having been that rarest of figures – someone who left Washington a little better than he found it. May more like him rise up in his wake.

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